遲滯中突露曙光：馬來西亞的媒改行動

A Sudden Gleam of Hope Amid Gridlock: The Malaysian Media Reform Action

2008年3月8日馬來西亞的選舉結束後，長期執政的威權政府遭受重挫，也讓處於遲滯狀態的媒改行動露出些許曙光。本文回顧與檢視馬來西亞媒改行動的歷程，發現在政府持續壓制下，媒改行動在1998年後才出現較具組織性的實踐，但相關改革理念尚未能普遍與深化，且始終面對語言、族群與宗教的障礙，難以擴大群眾的參與，使媒改行動不易推展。媒改組織需進一步釐清自身理念，爭取更多民眾的認同與共鳴，投入媒改行動或成為奧援的力量，以打破國家對媒體的各種不當管制，也督促政府推動合理的媒體政策，改善被長期扭曲的傳播體制，並提昇公眾的傳播權；同時以集體力量要求與政府關係密切的媒體集團進行改革，回歸公共利益為其運作的出發點，協助社會邁向民主化。

After the national election on March 8th 2008, the Malaysian authoritarian government recently experienced its stinging debacle since the decades-long of ruling power, and this incident sparked the media reform action a sudden gleam of hope and amid gridlock. This paper primarily reviews and examines the progress of Malaysian media reform action. It also further more reveals that the media reform action has emerged in a more organizational way till after 1998 under the continuously suppression by the government. The related idea of reform, however; seems hard to be universal and deepen into the grass-root level. It meets the constraints of languages, race and religion which have caused difficulties to increase the public participation. In other words, all these obstacles entangled by the media reform aggravates the hardship to expand. This paper then suggests that the media reform organization should grasp the opportunities to identity and to clarify its aspirations and missions following by the sudden change of domestic political scene. Despite the de-regulation effort of the state's strict manipulation towards media, it should urge and monitor the government to further the rational media policy agenda in order to modify the chronically distorted media establishment, and to avoid the media conglomerates harm the public interests in the name of liberalization.